Indian Point’s two reactors, operating since 1974 and 1976, generate up to 30 percent of New York City and Westchester’s power. Yet the plant remains controversial. March 1, 2012, Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law, moderated the Forum on the Future of Indian Point held at Columbia Law School. The forum [...]
{ 0 comments }
Rather than “Can we get away from Nuclear Power?” The real questions we need to ask ourselves are: How quickly can we phase out nuclear power? What will it cost? Given that a definition of insanity is doing the same behavior but expecting different results,
{ 0 comments }
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, has voted to allow Georgia Power to spend $14 Billion of ratepayer monies to build two reactors, Vogtle 3 and 4 near Waynesboro, Georgia. These would be the first new nuclear plants in the US in 35 years. Opponents say “we don’t need the power, but the utility wants the [...]
{ 0 comments }
Here are my top 10 predictions for 2012. These are less readings of the tea leaves or the entrails of goats and chickens and more simple extrapolations of patterns in progress. Altho that may be the way effective oracles. They just masked their observations with hocus pocus, mumbo-jumbo, and guts. This list runs a gamut [...]
{ 0 comments }
Tweet Andrew Restuccia and Ben German reported (here) on E2 Wire, “the Hill’s Energy & Environment Blog” that: Two nuclear reactors at the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, Va., automatically shut down Tuesday shortly after a magnitude-5.9 earthquake shook the state and surrounding area. The plant lost offsite power and is now running [...]
{ 0 comments }
Tweet In “Why We Still Need Nuclear,” the “op-ed” piece written in the New York Times, July 30, 2011, Tom Kilgore, the President and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, seems to have made up his mind to attempt to complete the Bellefonte 1 nuclear power plant, in Hollywood, Alabama. Mr. Kilgore is in [...]
{ 0 comments }
Tweet Bucolic? Pastoral? Looks that way, but looks can be deceiving. First of all, there’s Indian Point 1. Then there’s the water issue. Other issues are waste and national security. Indian Point 1 Brought online in August, 1962. Shutdown in October, 1974. Spent fuel is stored on site. Scheduled to be closed in 2026. Operated [...]
{ 0 comments }
Tweet The Newark Star Ledger reported (here and here) that Public Service Electric and Gas, PSE&G, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, PSEG, is installing a 2,700-ton chiller the University of Medicine and Dentristy of New Jersey, UMDNJ. This an $11.4 million investment in negawatts. The Star Ledger reported that UMDNJ will save $1.3 million [...]
{ 0 comments }
Asking a nuclear engineering professor “Is radiation bad?” is like asking Charlie Sheen “Is cocaine bad?” Wind and water turbines, geothermal systems, and photovoltaic solar modules produce power without burning fuel. While there are resource footprints in the manufacture, installation, and maintenance of these facilities, there are no mines, no wells, no wastes to manage in their ongoing operation. Shouldn’t we be asking “How do we get utility scale base load power from wind and sun?” Shouldn’t we be figuring out “How to shift from a fuel-based energy paradigm to a sustainable paradigm?”
{ 0 comments }
After Fukushima, the question is not: “Can we meet our needs with renewable, sustainable energy systems?” but rather it is “How can we meet our needs with renewable, sustainable energy systems?”
{ 0 comments }
(Second in a series on the ecological economics, financial ramifications, logistics, and systems dynamics of nuclear power in the light of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima.) Cary Krosinsky, VP at Trucost, is once again teaching a course on Sustainable Investing at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, CERC, at Columbia University. At the March [...]
{ 0 comments }
First in a series on the earthquake, tsunami, aftershocks and partial meltdown in Japan
{ 0 comments }
Offshore Wind Energy: Its potential to mitigate climate change (For Webinar Click Here) New England Faculty Colloquium: Climate Change, Policy, and Energy Solutions Wednesday, March 2, 2011 – 2:30 pm James Manwell, U Mass Amherst, Director, Wind Energy Center, (Press Release: Renewable Energy Research Laboratory) Wind power in the United States has grown from 1,800 [...]
{ 0 comments }
How Loud Is A Wind Turbine? Our friends at Treehugger re-published this graphic from GE, which builds wind turbines. If you’re standing next to a utility scale wind turbine, then you’ll hear it. At 300 meters, which is as close to residences as we can build them, they are about as loud as a refrigerator. [...]
{ 0 comments }
George Gilder, writing in the Wall Street Journal, 11/18/10, in California’s Destructive Green Jobs Lobby complained of the defeat of the repeal of the “Global Warming Solutions Act.” “Economic sanity lost out in what may have been the most important election on Nov. 2—and, no, I’m not talking about the gubernatorial or senate races. … [...]
{ 0 comments }
The same messages can be communicated by signalling the letter "K" in Morse code via signal lamp. (While a proper signal lamp may be ideal, a flashlight, probably best employing red LEDs, will certainly fit the bill).
Encyclopedic and accessible information about all matters electrical, electronic, and wireless.
Our banner image was designed by the always-amazing, never-satisfied-with-her-own-work Randa Clay. Her work can also been seen and read at Solutions for WP, HomeSchool Hacks, and elsewhere.